By Markar Melkonian It was with high hopes that I opened this big book, despite its too-ambitious title. David Graeber, after all, was the author of the wonderful book, Debt: The First 5000 Years. I am neither an anthropologist nor an archaeologist, and I came toThe Dawn of Everything with many questions. I wondered if
By Matthew T. Huber. I’ll try and make this response brief.[1] This exchange is difficult because Levien clearly does not understand what decarbonisation entails (sadly, a common trait among the climate Left). Despite my efforts to explain in the last response, he still sees it as a narrow transition from fossil fuels to “renewable energy.”
Socialism and Colonialism By Gilbert Achcar. [This article is translated from the entry “Colonialism / Imperialism / Orientalism” in Histoire globale des socialismes XIX-XXIe siècle, edited by Jean-Numa Ducange, Razmig Keucheyan and Stéphanie Roza, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2021, pp. 109–122.] The ideas of the social sharing of wealth, as well as its historical
By Roberto Finelli and Tania Toffanin Abstract The Covid-19 syndemic has brought to light the profound unease affecting contemporary society. It bears witness to the breakdown of the dialectical relationship between body and environment and – considering the inefficiency of the response to the spread of the virus – to the effects of the commodification
By Michael Levien Reconstructing Marxism to illuminate the drivers, consequences and politics of climate change seems to me both critical and immensely promising. While the most pressing issues of the climate crisis are social in nature, climate knowledge is currently dominated by natural scientists and policy analysts operating with a conception of society that resembles
More than 150 years later, the Paris Commune of 1871 continues to inspire critical thought and praxis on the Left. As one of the truly defining moments in the history of the struggle for socialism, the heroism, innovativeness, defiance, and sacrifices of the Communards have especially shaped the Marxist tradition. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa
9–12 November 2023,SOAS and Birkbeck, Russell Square, Central London Deadline for Online Registration: Monday 6th November 2023: https://conference.historicalmaterialism.org/e/hm2023. The programme is available here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8fcmk9. The book of abstracts is available here:https://tinyurl.com/4jv3y875. Whether the discussion is about reforming pension systems, overhauling health care or the sources of inflation, we are constantly reminded that life has a cost, a
The Professional Class Vanguard of Climate Justice: A Response to Michael Levien’s Review of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet Matthew T. Huber When you write a book you can only hope it generates debate. Of course, I’m thankful for all the engagement. However, Michael Levien’s review exhibits all the
This interview begins with the definition of utopia, exploring the relationship between scientific and utopian socialism, revealing contemporary revisions of utopian socialism.[i] There are many different approaches to and definitions of the key notion of utopia, so in the first section, we consider how to understand the notion of utopia correctly, in the context of
by Michael Levien Matthew Huber, (2022) Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, London: Verso. The year-long American saga that culminated in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) underscored the difference between two ways of mitigating climate change at the national level. The first is elite climate policy in which wonks and
I first met Bob Meister in Sydney in 2013. I had just started my PhD on the topic of Chinese financialisation and I was struck by Bob’s ability to articulate Marxist categories, techniques of finance, philosophical reflections and politics. I then had the opportunity to meet Bob in other occasions, academic conferences, activist laboratories in
Roger D. Markwick ‘Soviet Ukraine … can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.” … He was its creator and architect,’ declared Russian President Vladimir Putin, three days before he launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine. In Putin’s mind, Ukraine is an illegitimate state: the bastard offspring of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. ‘Modern Ukraine’, Putin vehemently
